Do I want to make scientist or students who want to learn.
Througout my student teaching I have had the privileage to work with students who have little motivation in my classroom and were "doing their time" as one student put it. The question I had to ask myself is what do I want them to take away from this battle. Do I want them to hate science with a passion or at minimum be able to stand the sight of it and be able to hold reasonable conversation at a dinner party with out looking like a complete fool.
I have to choose the latter with the notation that any student who wishes to go beyond will be given as many opportunites to as I am capable of. With this in mind I have choosen a modified verison of Mastery Learing. My students will have the oppurtunity to make up their work to 75% profciency as long as they put in a . With the stipulation that they retake the assessment within two weeks. However, if the student wishes to increase their score to 85% proficeny they may with the addition of an extended assignment. I believe that this practice gives the students who are motivationally imparied less of an opportunity to throw their hands up because they dug themselves an academic hole of failure. This method also transffers the academic responsiblity back into the students hands. This method is also helpful if a student chooses not to take advantage of the pollicy and their parents must be notified. The student is then immediatly questioned by the parents as to why they did not retake the assessment.
Much like a lesson must be scaffolded so to must the learning environment. It is my belief that the first week of school should be spent building the student-student, student - teacher relationship. This should be done in a way similar to corprate team building. Ultimatly, the students should be equalized and humanized. This process of equalizing should in no way be presented in a competive manner because that would be counter productive to the goal. This equalizing would then create a more managable classroom environment with higher productivity.
A common unifying goal should also be established during the first week of school. This goal could be to beautify the grounds at a park, The creation of a community garden for the local homeless, or the creation of a student wikispace to help future classes. This would allow the student to continue that sense of community on a project that is not academiclly related. This also allows me to slip content in the class that is related to the unifying goal. This then creates more buy-in to the academics presented. Due to homogenous grouping some student will grasp the material at a faster rate then their peers. The unifying goal will allow the more advanced students an outlet until new material is presented.
Finally, I have to create the quality of metacognition in my students. This reflective process will serve them well as they progress in their acadmic and life goals. Throughout my teaching infancy I have found myself reflecting on what I do when I want to learn about a topic which I know little about. I have realized that if it was not for this inate searching for information I would not have found many interesting topics and ideas that lead to new ideas and questions.
With this in mind I feel as though I need to foster this curiosity in my students by giving them the tools to understand what they may stumble across or want to find. Ultimatly, everything they encounter in life has some basis in science.This means they need a solid knowledge base of science but more importantly the tools to learn and explore. Not all of my students will be in a scientific field. However, If they can walk down the street and have a basic knowledge of the scientific world, with the skills/ tools to become more informed and educated on the science of their choice I will have done my job as an educator.
Do I want to make scientist or students who want to learn.
Througout my student teaching I have had the privileage to work with students who have little motivation in my classroom and were "doing their time" as one student put it. The question I had to ask myself is what do I want them to take away from this battle. Do I want them to hate science with a passion or at minimum be able to stand the sight of it and be able to hold reasonable conversation at a dinner party with out looking like a complete fool.
I have to choose the latter with the notation that any student who wishes to go beyond will be given as many opportunites to as I am capable of. With this in mind I have choosen a modified verison of Mastery Learing. My students will have the oppurtunity to make up their work to 75% profciency as long as they put in a . With the stipulation that they retake the assessment within two weeks. However, if the student wishes to increase their score to 85% proficeny they may with the addition of an extended assignment. I believe that this practice gives the students who are motivationally imparied less of an opportunity to throw their hands up because they dug themselves an academic hole of failure. This method also transffers the academic responsiblity back into the students hands. This method is also helpful if a student chooses not to take advantage of the pollicy and their parents must be notified. The student is then immediatly questioned by the parents as to why they did not retake the assessment.
Much like a lesson must be scaffolded so to must the learning environment. It is my belief that the first week of school should be spent building the student-student, student - teacher relationship. This should be done in a way similar to corprate team building. Ultimatly, the students should be equalized and humanized. This process of equalizing should in no way be presented in a competive manner because that would be counter productive to the goal. This equalizing would then create a more managable classroom environment with higher productivity.
A common unifying goal should also be established during the first week of school. This goal could be to beautify the grounds at a park, The creation of a community garden for the local homeless, or the creation of a student wikispace to help future classes. This would allow the student to continue that sense of community on a project that is not academiclly related. This also allows me to slip content in the class that is related to the unifying goal. This then creates more buy-in to the academics presented. Due to homogenous grouping some student will grasp the material at a faster rate then their peers. The unifying goal will allow the more advanced students an outlet until new material is presented.
Finally, I have to create the quality of metacognition in my students. This reflective process will serve them well as they progress in their acadmic and life goals. Throughout my teaching infancy I have found myself reflecting on what I do when I want to learn about a topic which I know little about. I have realized that if it was not for this inate searching for information I would not have found many interesting topics and ideas that lead to new ideas and questions.
With this in mind I feel as though I need to foster this curiosity in my students by giving them the tools to understand what they may stumble across or want to find. Ultimatly, everything they encounter in life has some basis in science.This means they need a solid knowledge base of science but more importantly the tools to learn and explore. Not all of my students will be in a scientific field. However, If they can walk down the street and have a basic knowledge of the scientific world, with the skills/ tools to become more informed and educated on the science of their choice I will have done my job as an educator.